Opera unveils top mobile advertising highlights of the year

It’s almost the end of the year and Opera Software is sharing its list of top mobile advertising trends that marked the year 2012, as part of the special edition of its State of Mobile Advertising report. The company pulled these insights from more than 10,000 mobile apps and sites that serve ads using the Opera mobile ad platform. Here are the top findings:

When it come to mobile ads, the iPhone 5 reigned supreme. Though Samsung came out big with their Galaxy S III and had a significant lead on Apple’s release of the new iPhone, iPhone 5 adoption was faster and now accounts for 16.1% of all iPhone device traffic. Moreover, iOS impressions are in higher demand, accounting for 44% of all impressions this year, and iOS 6 leapt to capture 65% of all ad requests from iOS-based devices.

Pandora, IMDb, Univision and Demand Media are top mobile publishers of the year.

Kia’s “Build a car” wins Most Innovative Ad Unit. This mobile ad/custom car-building tool is a tap-to-expand ad unit that lets users spin the car around and choose different colors before navigating to a mobile site.

Nearly one in four (23.8%) mobile impressions in 2012 was served on a site or app in the Music, Video and Media category. Together with Entertainment, these publishers generated 30% of total revenue for the year.

New targeting capabilities enable more than 2% CTR and those levels of effectiveness are now becoming more common as advertisers gain access to better targeting technologies.